Doctors at Viet Duc Friendship Hospital have just successfully performed surgery to reconnect an almost completely severed hand for a 22-month-old child who had an accident due to a plastic cup folding machine.
The patient was admitted to the hospital in a state of severe damage to the left wrist after being caught in a plastic cup lid sealing machine. The hand was almost completely severed to the wrist level, only a small skin bridge remaining.
According to doctors, a cup press is a device that uses very high mechanical pressure combined with high temperature to seal the mouth of the cup. Therefore, the damage that the child suffers is not only crushed wounds but also severe heat burns.
Through initial examination, doctors recorded that the fingertips of the child were purple and slumped - a typical sign that the hand was in a state of acute nutrient deficiency.
Because the patient was too young, it was not possible to fully assess the injury right in the emergency room. The red alert system was immediately activated. The inter-specialized team including anesthesia and resuscitation, microsurgery and orthopedic trauma quickly consulted, conducted necessary tests and transferred the patient straight to the operating room for emergency intervention.
Dr. Vu Trung Truc, Deputy Head of the Department of Maxillofacial Surgery - Plastic Surgery and Aesthetics, Viet Duc Friendship Hospital, said that the case faced three particularly major challenges.
The first is the condition of "hot blood deficiency". Although the hand is not completely mechanically severed, the entire nourishing blood vessel system has been destroyed, causing the hand part to be almost completely severed in terms of hematology. Because it is still attached to the body, the damaged limb is not properly refrigerated as in cases of complete severance, increasing the risk of tissue necrosis and significantly reducing the success rate of reattachment.
Second, the wound is both crushed and heat burned due to the impact of the cup press. High temperatures cause severe damage to soft tissues, blood vessels and nerves, making it very difficult to search for and reconnect anatomical structures.
The third difficulty is the extremely small size of blood vessels. In children under 2 years old, the diameter of blood vessels in the wrist area is only about 0.7 - 0.8 mm, equivalent to blood vessels in the fingers of adults. This requires microsurgery techniques with very high accuracy and absolute concentration of the surgical team.
After more than 5 hours of stress in the operating room, doctors successfully reopened the blood vessel and nervous system for the injured hand.
By the 6th day after surgery, the patient's hand was pink and warm again, and the irrigation condition was good. In particular, the baby's fingers had the first small movements - a very positive sign for the motor function recovery process in the near future.
The success of the surgery not only helped save the child's hand but also opened up opportunities for functional rehabilitation and quality of life when the child grew up.
Doctors recommend that in case of a limb severance accident, it is necessary to quickly provide first aid to stop bleeding and take the patient to specialized surgery centers as soon as possible to take advantage of the "golden time", enhancing the chance of saving life and restoring the injured part.
